Ridley Scott Teases ALIEN: COVENANT and Says There Will Be 2 More Films After It
Last week, 20th Century Fox released the official logo, title, and synopsis for Ridley Scott's Alien: Covenant. We previously heard from Scott that there would be one more film after this next one. Now in a new interview with THR, the director says that there will be two more movies after this one. If that's the case, then there will be four films in total that lead up to his 1979 classic Alien. Just as a little refresher before we get into Scott's recent comments, here's Alien: Covenant's official synopsis:
Ridley Scott returns to the universe he created in ALIEN with ALIEN: COVENANT, the second chapter in a prequel trilogy that began with PROMETHEUS — and connects directly to Scott’s 1979 seminal work of science fiction. Bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, the crew of the colony ship Covenant discovers what they think is an uncharted paradise, but is actually a dark, dangerous world — whose sole inhabitant is the “synthetic” David (Michael Fassbender), survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.
In the interview, the director talked about the story for his new Alien projects and what inspired him to tell this origin story of the xenomorph. Basically, he was frustrated with the sequels and was surprised that no one tackled the questions of why the xenomorphs exist.
“It's a very complex story. It's an evolution of what I first did with Prometheus 1. Prometheus 1 was borne out of my frustration that on Alien 1 in 1979 – I only did one as I don’t normally do sequels. I was amazed that in the 3 that followed that no-one asked the question ‘why the Alien, who made it and why?’ Very basic questions. So I came up with the notion of Prometheus 1, which starts to indicate who might have made it and where it came from.”
He went on to discuss the evolution of his story, and in the process confirms that there will be two films after Alien: Covenant, not only one.
“So I’m now going to the next one, which is the next evolution directly connected with the first one, which was this Shaw, when [s]he replaced Michael Fassbender in two pieces and we’ll kind of pick it up there and it will evolve. When that’s finished there’ll be another one and then another one which will gradually drive into the back entrance of the film in 1979… So in other words, why was this space jockey there and why did he have an Alien inside him? And those questions will be answered.”
It's good to know that questions will be answered. I am curious to see where this all leads. It's pretty crazy to see Scott so amped up about making these Alien films. I'm pretty sure Neill Blomkamp's desire to make Alien 5 lit a fire under Scott's ass, which is why Blomkamp's awesome-sounding movie got pushed out so that Scott could work on his movies.
Michael Fassbender is set to reprise the role of the android David and apparently Noomi Rapace’s Elizabeth Shaw will only make a brief appearance in Alien: Covenant. Are you excited about what Scott is planning to do with his Alien franchise?
It's set to hit theaters on October 6th, 2017.